CULTURE-SPAIN: One Hundred Years of Garcia Lorca

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jun 3 1998 (IPS) - The centenary of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca Friday has flooded Spain with universal recognition of the writer and his works, prompting celebratory events throughout his native land.

On the anniversary of his birth, on Friday June 5, Fuentevaqueros, his home town in Andalusia, will be hosting a major concert with the participation of leading artists, so far including Carlos Cano, Imperio Argentina, Joan Manuel Serrat, Miguel Rios, Amancio Prada and Enrique Morente.

Commemorative events throughout Spain include 13 exhibitions, the most important of which will be “Federico Garcia Lorca, public life, private history,” opening Friday in the Queen Sofia National Art Museum in Madrid.

This exhibition will present the life and works of the author on a thematic basis, with more than 400 documents, including various Salvador Dali paintings bearing references to the poet.

Manuel Fernandez Montesinos, secretary of the Garcia Lorca Foundation, said the planned events aim to “celebrate his life, creation and the fact that a boy born in Fuentevaqueros became the leading exponent of the Spanish culture and creative genius.”

And everyone in Spain has paid homage, from King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia to the ruling party and opposition politicians. But the most noteworthy factor has been the spawning of cultural initiatives.

Film maker, Manuel Gutierrez Aragon will be presenting “The King of Harlem,” by Hans Werner Henze, and Bruno Maderna’s “Don Perlimplin” in the Andalusian city of Granada Thursday. These works are based on Garcia Lorca’s “Poet in New York” and “The Loves of Don Perlimplin and Belisha in the Garden.”

Another artist, painter and scenery designer Frederic Amat is completing a 20 minute short, “Journey to the Moon,” based on an unknown script by Garcia Lorca.

“It is a journey to deep reasoning, and Lorca uses it to delve further into his autobiography and his sexual identity,” said Amat.

Moreover, to sum up the work, he added “I would say it is a song for freedom.”

As for documentaries, this week the private TV channel ‘Canal Plus’ is offering “Thus pass a hundred years,” by Javier Rioyo and Jose Luis Lopez, and the triptych “The voyages of Lorca,” by Manuel Palacios (New York), Juan Carlos Tabio (Havana) and Eduardo Mignogna (Buenos Aires).

As well as special programmed on the public television chain (Theme nights on TV2 and the International Spanish Television Channel), another private broadcaster, Antena3, will be dedicating an episode of the popular series, “Companeros,” to a presentation of Garcia Lorca’s “The House of Bernarda Alba.”

On the publishing front, a biography for young people, written by Manuel Rivas, will be issued, along with the illustrated version of “Tears for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias,” a facsimile of the “Poem of Cante Jondo (Andalusian Gypsy Singing),” and the work of US writer Thomasina Webb “Federico Garcia Lorca, by himself.”

A US film-maker, John Healey, wrote a script for a documentary film which formed the basis for Webb. Healey said he decided to write the script after seeing “Death in Granada,” starring Andy Garcia.

“It seemed horrific,” he said, “to think this would be the definitive film, because it shows a quaint folksy Lorca.”

Most of intellectuals and serious-minded people dealing with Garcia Lorca reject this “sterotyping” or “characterisation,” remembering Manuel de Falla’s statement: “If Lorca had been a musician, he would have been even greater than he was as a poet.”

Or as the Irish hispanist, Ian Gibson said: “Many of his friends agreed the man was greater than his work. They remember him, his behaviour, his ability to go from the piano to reciting a poem or drawing a picture, because everything he did became art.”

Similarly, they quote Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who said Garcia Lorca “had a completely superhuman tenderness. He was swarthy, magical and brought happiness with him.”

The commemorative acts included input from a US professor, Andrew Anderson, who stated Garcia Lorca had been dyslexic, and Spanish professor, Maria Luz Escribano, who produced an unpublished, and unverified, poem by the poet.

“I want to see the cypress/ I want to see the lemon tree/ I want to climb the mountain/ to touch the sun./ The boy was looking/ and the boy saw nothing./ A taste of green figs/ rose up in his throat./ The water went singing/ the song of his shroud/ and in his dreams without street lamps/ the fever shivered through him./ I want to drink the flowers/ of the white butterflies./ The sad child of the corners/ rose to a cloud for water.”

Although, perhaps, the best homage to the poet would be to dedicate him the poem he wrote for the US writer, Walt Whitman which ends saying:

“I want the strong air of the deepest night/ to remove the flowers and letters from the arch where you sleep,/ and for a black child to announce to the whites of the gold/ the arrival of the kingdom of the ear of corn.”

Garcia Lorca was killed by a firing squad of pro-Franco insurgents on August 19, 1936, a month after the beginning of the Spanish civil war.